Serbs Bosnia Herzegovina

The NATO-led peace force Wednesday arrested two Bosnian Serbs suspected of prison camp atrocities and said the men will be sent to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. The two did not resist, and no one was hurt in the military operation in the Serb-held town of Prijedor in northwest Bosnia, NATO spokesman Maj. Louis Garneau said. There were no Serbian demonstrations or other indications of tension in the region after the arrests, Garneau said.

The NATO-led peace force Wednesday arrested two Bosnian Serbs suspected of prison camp atrocities and said the men will be sent to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. The two did not resist, and no one was hurt in the military operation in the Serb-held town of Prijedor in northwest Bosnia, NATO spokesman Maj. Louis Garneau said. There were no Serbian demonstrations or other indications of tension in the region after the arrests, Garneau said.

While commanders of the NATO-led peace force in Bosnia can look back on an initial phase in which they have achieved their military objectives with unexpected ease, their performance on the political front has generated troubling questions. Contradictory statements from senior leaders of NATO's Implementation Force, known as IFOR, have sowed confusion at a potentially explosive time, when bitter enemies are being obliged to find peace.

In a dramatic escalation of tensions among Bosnian Serbs, a senior leader, his closest aides and dozens of his gunmen were trapped for hours Tuesday in a hotel besieged by an angry mob and surrounded by rival police. Most of the captives were eventually rescued--and disarmed--by NATO troops. Momcilo Krajisnik, the Bosnian Serb member of Bosnia's three-member presidency, was pelted with gravel, eggs and bottles as he escaped a crowd that branded him and his government as crooks.

In a dramatic escalation of tensions among Bosnian Serbs, a senior leader, his closest aides and dozens of his gunmen were trapped for hours Tuesday in a hotel besieged by an angry mob and surrounded by rival police. Most of the captives were eventually rescued--and disarmed--by NATO troops. Momcilo Krajisnik, the Bosnian Serb member of Bosnia's three-member presidency, was pelted with gravel, eggs and bottles as he escaped a crowd that branded him and his government as crooks.

Senior Bush administration officials said the United States has reliable information that up to 3,000 Muslims were killed in May and June at Serb-run detention camps near Brcko, about 75 miles north of Sarajevo, the New York Times reported in today's editions. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that reports had been received of up to 2,000 people killed in Serb camps.

Nearly 200,000 Bosnians bade an emotional farewell to former President Alija Izetbegovic, who died Sunday at age 78. He was a father figure for many Muslims who credited him with saving their ethnic group from extermination by the Serbs during Bosnia-Herzegovina's 1992-95 war. "He was my president and my commander," said Muharem Aladzuz, a teary former soldier in the massive crowd outside Sarajevo's Kovaci Cemetery.

Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, leader of Russia's nationalist opposition, said Sunday that his party would consider any North Atlantic Treaty Organization air strike against Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia.

The Muslim-led government's army received weapons and explosives smuggled from Iran and elsewhere in violation of a 1991 U.N. arms embargo, a senior Bosnian military source said Friday. The report of the shipments came a day after the U.S. Senate voted to urge President Clinton to work to lift the U.N. arms embargo on the Bosnian government, which is outgunned by the Bosnian Serbs.

U.S. diplomats Thursday brought their campaign to end the war in the former Yugoslav federation to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was reported to generally favor the new U.S. plan. But ongoing warfare in the Balkans illustrated the obstacles to the pact. "Today's talks were extremely useful, they were very frank and they clarified some issues," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke said after meeting with Milosevic for five hours.

While commanders of the NATO-led peace force in Bosnia can look back on an initial phase in which they have achieved their military objectives with unexpected ease, their performance on the political front has generated troubling questions. Contradictory statements from senior leaders of NATO's Implementation Force, known as IFOR, have sowed confusion at a potentially explosive time, when bitter enemies are being obliged to find peace.

Senior Bush administration officials said the United States has reliable information that up to 3,000 Muslims were killed in May and June at Serb-run detention camps near Brcko, about 75 miles north of Sarajevo, the New York Times reported in today's editions. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that reports had been received of up to 2,000 people killed in Serb camps.

The United Nations on Friday extended its easing of sanctions on Yugoslavia but said it will set stricter conditions in the future. The 15-member Security Council voted 13-0 to ease the sanctions for another 75 days. Russia--a traditional Serb ally--and China abstained. A previous measure had eased the sanctions for 100 days.

The escalation in fighting that diplomats feared was just ahead arrived Tuesday as government positions in northwestern Bosnia came under fierce attack. Renegade Muslims, along with Serbs from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, began attacking government positions south of Velika Kladusa, in the northern part of the Bihac pocket, shortly after midnight. Maj. Herve Gourmelon, a U.N. military spokesman, said U.N.